1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to an apparatus for managing software vending machines, and particularly relates to an apparatus for managing software vending machines, in which a software program stored in each of the software vending machines is renewed.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Recently, as personal computers, game machines using personal computers, and the like, become widely used, machines for automatically vending software programs have received practical application. In view of the characteristics of commodities, that is, software programs, such an automatic software vending machine is arranged so that the automatic software vending machine does not sell external storing media, such as ROM packages, magnetic recording tapes, floppy disks, or the like, in which software programs have been individually stored in advance, but sells a software program in such a manner that data forming a software program for sale is stored in advance in the automatic software vending machine per se and the software program is duplicated onto an external recording medium at the time of selling.
There have been proposed various kinds of automatic software vending machines. For example, an automatic software vending machine has been proposed in which a plurality of software programs are stored in advance in a hard disk or the like provided in the machine so to make it possible to sell various kinds of software programs.
In the automatic software vending machine as described above, however, there has been such a problem that the hard disk or the like for storing data forming the software programs for sale has a limit in storage capacity so that there is a limit in the number and kind of software programs which can be registered in the software vending machine. Further, in such a software vending machine, it will cause such a further problem that the demands of society for the software programs cannot be taken into consideration if the software programs for sale are deleted one after one simply in the order of oldness when a new software program is to be registered.